Let You Go
by Ebony10
Summary: Previously Butterfly, Flutter By. Now two chapters: a very short fic about Jane's feelings towards Lisbon and vice versa. Not quite angsty, maybe, but also not fluffy. Finished.
1. Butterfly, Flutter By

"_I try to spread my fingers wide enough to let you go."_

I ride the public transit here in Seattle and they have something called poetry on buses. This line really struck me as beautiful. What follows is the result. I hope you enjoy it. And I posted immediately after writing so let me know if there are any mistakes, please. Thanks!

Clearly, I do not own The Mentalist nor the line of poetry that prompted this. Though I would *love* it if people wrote their own fic inspired by this line. Because I love the line so much that I would love to read others' interpretations of it.

ADD: I just added a second (and last!) chapter.

**Butterfly, Flutter By**

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Patrick Jane knew that he was broken. He knew it wasn't normal to be uncaring of your own welfare. Knew it wasn't normal to be fixated on a single man, a single thing. Knew it wasn't normal to sleep on a bare mattress under a grotesque grin painted in the blood of your dead family.

Knew it wasn't right to be so fascinated, so intrigued, with his boss. With Teresa Lisbon.

He should leave her be, keep his distance. After all, he was a man without a future.

But he couldn't seem to help it. Something about her called to him. She was a wonderful mix of contradiction—steel and silk. Strong, yet fragile. A stickler for rules, but willing to go to bat for the underdog against all odds. Willing to go to bat for her team, for him.

Jane knew that she cared too much for him. That he would hurt her. Maybe not physically, but mentally…emotionally…he knew that one day he would look up from the dead body of his nemesis and see disappointment in her eyes. Disappointment and hurt. He wondered why his chest felt tight when he thought of that moment.

Really, could a broken man feel?

He figured that was the precise reason that she drew him in. Something about her made him feel alive again. For a time, she could make him forget that he was in pieces, shattered. And even when he came back down to reality, she was there. Calmly and gently handling him before giving him a way to maneuver against the strong waves of darkness that threatened to consume him.

He sometimes wondered if she knew that she was the only thing that had kept him together these past few years. He doubted it. He sometimes wondered where he would be without her at this very moment.

In another locked, pristine room?

Dead?

A recluse in his home, locked in with terrible memories?

Mindlessly chasing after a ghost? Fruitlessly chasing a serial killer?

He knew that, though she may not agree with him and they didn't always see eye to eye, _she_ was the perfect person to put on the Red John case. She was determined. She didn't let things get her down—at least, not for long.

She was the strongest person he knew. But, unlike most people, he knew that she was also fragile underneath. And that he would seriously hurt her. In a way that would make it so she was never the same again.

So he knew it wasn't right to be so fascinated with her. He knew he should leave her be.

He tried to spread his fingers wide enough to let her go.

But somehow, someway he just couldn't. It seemed that his incredibly strong willpower deserted him when it came to her. The same willpower that allowed him to abandon everything about his life before he lost his family. The same willpower that made it so he didn't care what he gave up as long as he got his revenge.

Somehow, it left him when he was with Teresa Lisbon.

And he wished he was a different person. One who was normal. One who could move forward. Who wouldn't hurt her.

But he knew he wasn't strong enough.

And so he started to wish that she would be like a butterfly, wild and free, rather than one that he felt he was caging.

He watched her at her desk, light spilling in the window and spinning a ethereal atmosphere about her, making her appear fragile.

Butterfly, flutter by.


	2. Minnow Go, To and Fro

"_I try to spread my fingers wide enough to let you go."_

This is for Kathi-Ann, who thought it would be interesting to see a chapter from Lisbon's POV with the same premise. See chapter two for the quick intro. Hopefully it's okay. Thanks for all of the nice comments on the first one.

**Minnow Go, To and Fro**

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Teresa Lisbon knew she was helpless. Helpless against his all-consuming need for vengeance.

She had never been someone who had wanted to meddle in another person's affairs. They could do as they wished as long as it didn't harm another person, an innocent person. She knew from experience that meddling, even when well-meaning, led to a convoluted and often painful path.

Still, she couldn't help hoping that Patrick Jane could find some peace, some way to move forward. And even if he couldn't, she wanted him to find a way to live.

Selfish, she supposed. Never had anyone affected her like he had. Against her better judgment and normally steely willpower, Jane had found a way into her life and she couldn't, for the life of her, figure out a way to reverse it. Or even to stop it from getting worse.

It was like a landslide and all she had in defense was an umbrella.

Time and again, she tried to tether him to her world. She tried to warn against his blind vendetta. She tried to get him to see the value in his life.

She couldn't help feeling a little ashamed. Never had she wanted to push someone this much, wanted them to see things her way. In fact, she had always prided herself on her ability to be objective and accepting of others' thoughts and opinions. Sure, she may not agree (a circumstance which sometimes led to the incarceration of others—hey, her job was to uphold society's view of justice).

She couldn't help wanting to grasp onto Jane, wanting to keep him from going to far into the darkness. To keep him from leaving them, leaving her.

She tried to stop. She tried to keep her distance. She tried to leave him be.

But it was as if there was an invisible string connecting them.

She needed to let him go because holding him back, keeping him from his desire, would only chip at the crumbling pieces left of the man he was. And while she didn't want him to continue down the path he had chosen, she found that she couldn't bear to see him decay in front of her eyes.

Still, she couldn't seem to sever that invisible thread. Really, it was a lose-lose situation. For her. And maybe, she thought, for him.

She knew that there would be a time that she would have to let him go. Because sometimes she could see what he was before. Incredible lightness with an intelligence that seemed too large to be in one person. Someone not made to be caged, to be tethered.

She remembered when she was a child, she used to catch minnows in the stream near her family's first house. Her father, back when he could still be called such, would scold her. She would then protest that the stream was too strong, too dangerous for them.

"_Teresa, they were made for the stream. Whatever happens, it is the way of the world."_

She really hated that term. _The way of the world_. But she had known he was right. He still was.

And so, as in her childhood, she tried to spread her fingers wide enough to let him go.

She looked out to the bullpen from where she was sitting in her office, seeing him once more as the center of attention, keeping Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt hanging on his every word and action. She sighed.

Minnow go, to and fro.


End file.
